Amphigory
by MomoOfficial
Summary: In an anonymous office in the Copley Building in Boston, there is a stoic accountant who never speaks, and a nervy receptionist who never stops talking. AU Wheatley/Chell, some NSFW content.
1. Chapter 1

In Copley Square in Boston, there was a hulking skyscraper, all made up with blue windows that reflected the sky and the bustle of the strange city around it. In this building was one sector dedicated to the accounting and bookkeeping of Aperture Science. Aperture was based in Ohio, and liked to spread its offices across the world like some corporate hydra; when one office was cut off, another sprung up in its place.

This office was one of many faceless ones throughout the globe, though its workers were certainly unique.

Among them: a girl who refused to speak to anyone unless the speaking was done in writing, and a receptionist who repeatedly hung up on calls he was supposed to hold.

All surrounded in shining blue windows that reflected the long, long fall to the ground.

* * *

"Hello?" he asked. His voice was loud and dripped with a Bristolian accent that hadn't quite left him, even after years of living in America. It carried to her cubicle.

She paused in her writing, and smiled. She waited.

"Oh, yes!" he chirped. "You want to speak with- oh? Yes, yes, _her_. I know her. Well, you're going to have to hold, alright? Just...hang on, let me patch you...oh, God damn it."

She returned to the document in front of her, and kept typing. She heard him pick up another call.

"Hello? Oh, it's you again! Sorry about that, I...what?"

A long pause. She stopped again.

"Well, I'm sorry, but I happen to be the only receptionist, there _isn't _another one."

Another pause.

"Now, there's no need to get cross with me, mate. No need. Let's all just be calm, and rational, and...hello? Hello? Bloody fucking-"

"He always brings a smile to my face. Wouldn't you agree?"

She looked up. Her boss lounged over the edge of her cubicle. In her black bob and tight white dress, with one arm draped languorously over the gray cubicle wall and a half-smile on her rouged lips, she looked like some large, predatory cat. She stared fixedly in the direction of the reception area, where the offending man in question could be heard muttering to himself.

"Of course, it was not _my _decision to hire him," Gladys continued. Her smile grew wider, and she took a sip from her coffee mug. "That honor would go to Mr. Johnson, I presume. What an interesting man."

Chell stared up at her, not saying anything. Gladys didn't look down at her. The woman knew exactly whose cubicle she was currently leaning on.

Her boss tapped her manicured nails against the cubicle wall, then sighed and turned away. She sauntered down the hall. "Holler if you need me," she said, even though she knew well that Chell never spoke to her and never would. "Continue with your work."

Gladys laughed, then added, "Maybe we can get cocktails some time."

Chell grit her teeth, turned back to her computer, and kept typing.

* * *

The sun went down at 4, and the entire city lit up.

Chell moved into the front of the office to fetch her coat. On the way, she snuck a glance at the receptionist.

He wasn't tall, but his legs were long, and were so bunched up under the circular desk that he resembled a very unruly, very nervy English spider. His hair was immaculately kept, but his stubble was not, and his shirt was unironed; an equally wrinkled, powder-blue blazer hung over the back of his seat. His blue eyes nervously swept back and forth over the paper jungle that was his desk. His long fingers shuffled through paper after paper, sometimes darting to the keyboard, only to return to the exact same papers and shuffle through them again. Occasionally, he shoved his black glasses up his beakish nose, only to have them slide down again due to their comical size and thickness.

She paused and leaned backwards to take a look at his computer monitor, barely visible through a rainbow of sticky notes, and saw a perfectly empty Excel spreadsheet.

"I'm working, I swear."

Chell looked down. He stared very fixedly at a point in space in front of him, completely frozen.

"I've been working all day and I'll have all this finished by seven. Give me some more time." His voice became higher-pitched. "You're not going to fire me, are you?"

She raised an eyebrow and smiled. A small giggle escaped her.

He finally looked up.

He deflated.

"Oh, thank God, it's _you_ and nother!" He sighed. "The mute girl. I've heard..."

At her stare, he turned fully to face her and waved his hands. "N-not mute, it's just...um...you're a _selective speaker. _That's it!" He flashed his teeth in a smile. "I just heard from some others when...when I got my coffee..."

_This man doesn't need coffee,_ she thought.

"...you know, over...over at the Starbucks...farther down by the Pru- hey, you know, that place is much too expensive. I'd rather Dunkie's, honestly, but they're not close enough, it's all a matter of convenience, especially since I'm late all the time-"

More hand-waving. He frowned.

"No, I'm not, actually, I'm not late. You didn't hear that. But, um...just heard you're mute and all, and I just..."

He sighed and put his hands down.

"Assumed."

She blinked.

He scratched his stubbled cheek and stuck a hand out at her, his smile re-appearing. "I'm Wheatley."

When she didn't take his hand, he frowned again. "You're not going to tell me your name, are you?"

She said nothing.

He hunched his shoulders and withdrew his hand. "Right. That's, um. Bit rude of me, to be honest. Shouldn't, um, ask if you don't want to..."

Wheatley bit his lip and looked away. "...tell me."

There was an awkward silence.

She turned and walked towards the coat closet.

"I can get that for you!"

He scrambled past her and opened the coat closet for her. Chell instinctively recoiled. How they let this trembling bundle of nerves welcome clients and set the mood for the rest of Aperture's Boston wing, she didn't know.

"Which coat is yours?" he asked her. "Just point. Just do a little...you know, indication. 'Oh, Wheatley, that one,' that sort of thing. Heh."

She blinked and pointed to her black winter coat, hidden among all the rest.

"Right." He pulled it off its hanger and opened it in front of her, with both of his hands gripping the coat's shoulders. "In you go."

Chell pursed her lips and looked at him sideways.

"In you go," he said again. His eyes darted to the coat, then back to her. He rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on. Hop on in, and I'll put it on for you. That's just proper manners, that."

She sighed, turned around, and held out her arms. With surprising care, he guided each of her arms into the sleeves, and adjusted the coat so that it hung neatly around her shoulders.

"All set."

Chell buttoned up the coat and looked up at him. Wheatley stood with his hands behind his back, rocking from heel to toe and back again. The nervy smile on his face was still there.

She bit her lip. That stare was making her nervous.

"Be back tomorrow?" he asked.

She rolled her eyes and nodded, smiling. He stopped rocking, and his smile became softer.

"I know, it's hard. Nine to five. Always difficult, especially with, um..."

Chell put her hands palm-down by her cheeks, mimicking the cut of Gladys's severe bob. Wheatley laughed and nodded vigorously, and Chell giggled again.

"Ohh, yes. _Her._ Well, there's no escaping this. Have to pay the bills somehow. Part of life and all that."

She nodded slowly, her smile widening. He clasped his hands in front of her.

There was a long pause. He cleared his throat.

"Have a good evening," Wheatley said, and turned and walked quickly back to his desk. He resumed the paper shuffling and banging on his keyboard without looking at her again.

* * *

A ride alone on the T's crowded Green line, and she was home in Brookline.

She walked alone to her empty apartment.

She undressed, alone, in her empty apartment. She took a shower, redressed, and cooked, alone, in her empty aparment. She ate alone. She watched television alone.

When she turned the television off, there was silence, and for a very long time she stared at her expression in the black television screen.

She took a deep, calm breath, and released it.

And after a few minutes, she rose and went to bed, alone. And there was darkness, and silence, and blissful nothing, until her alarm clock rang and she got up to do it all over again.


	2. Chapter 2

She usually wore pantsuits to work. That part of her wardrobe never changed: black slacks that fit her nicely in the hips without clinging, a blazer, a pressed white button-down, black kitten heels. Aperture's dress code required blazers and pressed shirts, and a heel below two inches or shined dress shoes. "Presentable," said the handbook. "Look as if you really want to come to work!" The three exclamation points, she thought, was what really cinched it.

They allowed Gladys to break this rule, with her high heels and omnipresent tight dress (black or white). But Gladys was an exception and, as she liked to remind her workers time and again, the only exception there ever would be.

Chell did not follow the dress code to keep from being reprimanded.

She kept the dress code so Gladys had as little of an excuse to speak to her as possible.

But Aperture did not monitor ties, and that's where Chell was allowed to bring herself a bit of a soundless "fuck you."

She stood in front of the mirror, tying her silk orange tie with practiced, deft fingers. The hypnotic movement soothed her, focused her, allowed her to brace herself against the world and against Boston.

Over, around, through the loop.

Her mind wandered to the receptionist, and she stopped a moment.

He followed the dress code, but tenuously. Chell fingered the silk of her tie while she recalled the powder-blue blazer, the unironed shirt, the stubble. It almost seemed as if he was too eclectic for the dress code.

Or, simply, too big. Too other.

Or maybe he didn't understand how to work an iron or fold his clothes.

Chell tilted her head, examined her figure in the mirror.

Still thinking of him, she turned a bit, examining herself.

And then she shrugged and went back to tying her tie.

Over, under, pull tight, smooth-down.

Ready to go.

* * *

"Early as usual," Gladys said when she saw Chell, at her desk, at eight AM, typing away. "You know you don't have to be in until nine. You don't have to enjoy work that much."

Chell tensed.

"I never knew you were so excited to see the inside of these four walls every week day. Someone should give you a gift basket."

Chell kept typing. Gladys sipped her coffee. In the reflection of the monitor, Chell watched as she flipped her black bob and turned to stare idly out of one of Copley's many windows. Her boss's mouth pressed into a thin line.

This caught Chell's attention. She kept watching in her computer monitor.

"I saw you talking to the moron the other day. You know, the thing they have sitting out there_."_

Chell turned a little too quickly to look at her boss.

She thought her and Wheatley had been alone.

Gladys tipped her head back and laughed. It was a light, airy, very empty sound.

"He talks about you. Always ready to discuss 'that cute little mute girl,' as he calls you." Gladys sighed and slurped her coffee again, this time taking longer to finish her sip. "Adorable."

"Hm."

Gladys looked down, her eyes wide. She pressed a delicate hand to her chest. "What's that? I can't quite hear you."

Chell glared at Gladys.

Gladys looked down her nose at Chell.

There was silence.

Then her boss turned and sauntered away. The blood red of the soles of her heels distinguished her black-robed form and pale legs from the rest of the office.

"Orange is really not your color. You might want to consider changing it to something more flattering."

The woman stopped.

"That is, if you want better suitors than _him."_

The woman kept walking. Chell's lip curled at Gladys' retreating form. Gladys, as if sensing Chell's heavy gaze on her, simply lifted her arms into a graceful shrug while she moved back to her private office.

* * *

"You're here again!" Wheatley chirped when she rounded the corner that afternoon. "On time for leaving as always, I see."

Wheatley didn't come in until nine-thirty, usually in a flurried mess and shouting apologies to anyone who would listen, or, perhaps, just to get them out. He never knew when she showed up, since he never showed up on time and she made a point to take all her meals quietly.

"And um, on time for coffee as well."

Chell pointedly ignored him and walked to the coat closet. She could _hear_ the simpering smile on his face. Her back turned to him, she rolled her eyes.

"That's a good um, track record, there. Being on time for things. For coffee, for lunch...and now, to get your coat! Brilliant, you are. Really."

She stopped and turned to look at him. He was leaning forward over his desk, hands pressed against the myriad of papers covering it. His smile was toothy and just a tad unnerving.

"Um." He scratched his stubble and looked away, the smile fading. "Yeah, on time. Can't blame you for being on time to leave. This place is miserable." He looked back at her and waved his arms. "Don't...don't tell anyone I said that. I'd rather not get fired. That's already happened."

Chell raised an eyebrow. Wheatley waved his arms even faster.

"No, no, no, you didn't hear that! I've never been fired. Not me. Always...replaced. Yes, replaced, that's it."

He stopped waving his arms and looked down at his desk. His eyes swept back and forth: over the computer, the mess of papers, the general air of discord and unproductivity naturally surrounding him.

"Replaced," he muttered to himself.

Her eyes narrowed. She took a step forward.

Almost immediately, his head snapped up, and he clasped his hands together. "Well! Let's fetch your coat, and you can get a move on home."

Chell, smiling wryly, let him put her coat on.

Later, on the T, she stuck her hands in her pockets and found a slip of paper.

Chell fished out what looked like a fortune cookie slip, faded with time and endless folding. She tilted her head and peered at it, but the words were completely illegible. She never ate Chinese food.

She turned it over, and scribbled on the back, in blue pen, in a very shaky hand, was a sequence of numbers beginning with "617."

A phone number.

The sneaky bastard had gotten his phone number into her coat pocket when she wasn't looking.

Chell stuffed the fortune cookie slip back into her pocket and looked away. There was mother and child reading a book together farther down the train, and she watched them carefully as the T moved to Hynes, to Kenmore, and onward.

* * *

She pressed her back against her front door and fished out her cell phone from her briefcase. Her apartment was slightly chilly.

To Wheatley, she texted, simply:

_?_

She waited a few minutes, and then checked again.

No reply.

Chell tucked the phone back into the briefcase and set it down by the door. She went to cook her dinner. She didn't think about him.

* * *

After the television was turned off, and the familiar silence enveloped her apartment once again, and her mind started wandering, she shuffled back to her briefcase and checked her phone.

Five messages.

First, from Wheatley:

_mute girl? :?_

Next, from Wheatley:

_god god god soz! didn't mean it_

Next, from Wheatley:

_soz soz sozzz ur not mute_

Next, from Wheatley:

_hope u r not mad. wheatley here_

Finally, from Wheatley:

_coffee? on me? :?_

Chell's eyes widened.

Now he was asking her out for coffee.

She cursed.

She didn't know this man. She just let him put on her coat once in a while, with his shaky hands and his strange smile and his heavy Bristolian accent wishing her a good night.

Her eyes swept around her empty apartment. A strange, hollow something rose up in her.

She texted back:

_?_

Almost immediately, the reply:

_coffee? stuff u drink? y/n? :?_

She half-smiled. She could just see Wheatley hunched over his phone wherever he lived, shaking like a leaf. She couldn't see him taking anyone out to coffee, much less a girl he seemed to have a severe crush on. He seemed too nervy for anything caffeinated or hot enough to burn hands.

She pursed her lips and inhaled.

Poor thing.

She exhaled, and texted back:

_:)_

And the reply, fifteen seconds later:

_good good good good. see u :_

And that was that.


	3. Chapter 3

The next day, when he put on her coat after work, he asked her if Saturday morning at the Wired Puppy on Newbury was okay. She nodded. He asked her if ten was better, or maybe earlier at nine. She held up eight fingers. She saw him wince, but he nodded and said, okay, that would be brilliant, have a good night and don't forget to meet me at the Wired Puppy, eight am sharp, don't be late.

* * *

Chell wore black to work, but on weekends, she let herself wear some color.

It was best not to stand out at Aperture Science. No matter how much you bent the dress code, you were treated like the disposable, faceless office drone you really were. If you bent the dress code even further, Gladys came over and bitched you out, and that was one thing Chell did not want. She allowed herself the orange tie and nothing else.

But on the weekends, she wore blue, green, orange, white, silver, pink, all manner of colors. One at a time: a blue blouse with black slacks and black shoes. Or a white dress with a pink shrug. Or, for today, an orange sweater, dark jeans, and white flats. She only owned two pairs of shoes: the flats for weekends, and the black kitten heels for work. She was a woman of simplicity; to have an overstuffed closet would not do.

The colors were enough.

She smoothed out her sweater and examined herself in the mirror. Chell let her hair hang loose, instead of putting it up in her usual ponytail.

The loose black hair framed her lightly-blushed cheeks and made her look...well, younger. Made the bags under her eyes look like they weren't there. Made her look like she had a relaxing job.

Chell half-smiled and turned away.

Wheatley was so excitable,she thought, a change in her hairstyle could probably put him into cardiac arrest.

* * *

When she walked into the dimly-lit Wired Puppy at eight, he already had a table.

The place was packed; Chell slid through the line of wide-eyed tourists and hung-over Bostonians to his table, in the back sitting room. He was hunched over a paper cup, bony knuckles gone completely white; a half-eaten scone sat forgotten on the table. His blue blazer, the one he normally wore for work, was draped over the seat. His hair looked slightly less kept than it usually was, but was still swept up into a coif. Wheatley had even shaved and was wearing a non-wrinkled T-shirt.

He was also trembling something awful.

Chell slowly approached him and placed her hand on the table. Wheatley jumped a mile.

"Oh." He deflated, then perked up, his smile much too bright for eight in the morning. "It's you! You made it!"

Wheatley checked his phone on the table. "Aaaaand eight am, I see. You weren't late."

Chell shrugged and draped her coat over the opposite seat. "I try not to be."

"Man alive!" he shrieked. An older couple looked over at them. "You can talk!"

Chell calmly took her gloves off. "Of course."

The older couple looked away.

"What? But I..."

He stuttered. Chell smirked.

"Not often," she said. Her voice was deep and quiet, a stark contrast to his high-pitched, nervous babble. "I don't need to."

"Christ," he breathed. He ran a trembling hand through his hair and mussed it further. "I never knew."

Then he pressed his palms together and leaned towards her. "I am so, so sorry about calling you mute." He stared up at her, looking as if he were about to cry.

She shook her head. "It's fine."

Wheatley bit his lip and looked down at his coffee. He fell completely silent.

Then his head snapped up. His glasses slid down his nose.

"I'll buy you something," he said to her. "Anything you want. I asked you out, I have to pay. It's the first date, so first date rules are in place."

She raised an eyebrow. "This is a date?"

Chell half-regretted, half-thrilled in saying that, because Wheatley's eyebrows went up so comically far that they nearly touched his hairline, and all color drained from his face.

"I didn't..." He mouthed like a fish for a few moments, then said, "I didn't mean to say that."

She gave him a gentle smile and waved a hand. He sunk down into his chair and stared up at her with wide, blue eyes.

"I can buy my own," she said softly. "Save your money."

She waited alone to give him time to decompress. At one point, she snuck a peek at him.

He was staring at a small yellow paper in his palm.

Notes.

Probably on how to speak to women.

Chell sighed and stepped forward.

When she came back with her coffee, Wheatley looked like he had sufficiently calmed down enough to speak to her.

She took a sip of her coffee. "When did you get here?"

"Six." He laughed weakly.

She tilted her head. "Why?"

"Didn't want to be late, like I normally am, for, um...work. And duties in general."

She watched the people walking in and out of the sitting room, anything to keep from having to watch him being jittery. She heard him sigh.

Chell said, "Aperture isn't worth anyone's time. Don't worry about being late."

"Really? Because I hear that, um, you're there. Every morning. Seven. On the dot."

"So I can go home early."

"Pardon?"

She looked back to him. He leaned forward across the table; she found herself not minding the trespass into her physical space.

She looked away. "I get there early, I work, I leave early. Less time with Gladys."

"Your voice is pretty," he blurted. "Why don't you talk at work?"

This question made her breath hitch.

She turned fully to face him and looked him dead in the eye.

Wheatley recoiled, blue eyes trained on her silver ones.

She chose her words carefully.

"So I don't give Gladys the satisfaction of hearing me."

There was a pause.

"I see," Wheatley said slowly.

He looked afraid, but there was awe there, too.

Chell sipped her coffee again and gave him a half-smile. "Glad someone gets it."

* * *

They made small talk for the rest of the time.

He learned very little about her, but she learned a lot about him.

Wheatley lived in an apartment in Southie. He had one roommate named Apollo. Their apartment was very small and his space heater was his best friend. He liked eating crisps, but he had to watch it because his mum liked to call him and tell him that if he eats too many he's a pothead, or a fattie, or both. He adamantly said that he wasn't a fattie, but didn't deny the "pothead" accusation. Apollo liked space a lot. They never really had girls over since Apollo went to his girlfriend's a lot and didn't really talk to Wheatley before he left, and then the kid would come back a week later with a glazed look and dark circles under his eyes. Wheatley liked watching Gordon Ramsey yell at blokes on telly. Sometimes Wheatley paid pedi-cabbers to take him all around the city, and this is how he usually blew all his money in an hour, and he usually got yelled at because the pedi-cabbers got tired of having to truck some big English man around Boston. A couple pedi-cabbers threw his cash into the wind when he asked if they'd like to head to Cambridge across the Charles, but some were nice and took the extra cash, but still yelled at him afterwards. He caught a homeless man having a wank once in the summer, but that was an odd day in general. He wished his apartment was cleaner. Gladys scared the daylights out of him. He liked dogs. And he didn't sleep last night.

"Did you sleep?" he asked her with a big smile.

She nodded.

"Well, brilliant," he said, his smile growing just a tad wider and his eyebrows raising. "Wouldn't want you to be sleepier than I am."

He was on his fifth cup of coffee at that point.

She was still on her first.

* * *

"Want to know a neat little word? Something to add to your vocabulary? _Amphigory_. Am-phi-go-rey. It means 'nonsense.' Nothing else, just 'nonsense.' Isn't that brilliant? Such a big elaborate word for nothing in particular, really. Rolls off the tongue. You try saying it. Come on, now. _Amphigory."_

* * *

They bid good-bye and went their separate ways on the train.

Not two minutes later did he text her asking if they could meet at the Wired Puppy again the next day.

Their morning meetings became regular after that.

* * *

During the work day, he didn't speak to her, but lit up when she came up to his desk, ready for him to slip on her coat.

She was becoming oddly tolerant of him, his little quirks and twitches and his rattling English voice. She liked how he filled the silence that she created around herself, penetrated it with his tendency to point out every little dust mote, every smell of sugar and coffee beans and steamed milk. She liked how he talked so she didn't have to.

She liked how she could listen to him speak for two hours, and then go home and relish the silence around her just a bit more, without feeling as if it was pressing around her like it usually did.

He was a change.

The best part was, whenever he put on her coat, she felt him taking the extra time to smooth out the fabric on her arms and shoulders. Light, feathery touches, nothing complex, nothing that would draw attention from anyone passing by his desk, but just enough to let her know that yes, he did have a crush on her, and yes, he _liked _getting up several hours early for their coffee dates.

"-just wondering, really, you don't have to say yes."

She turned and looked up at him, a question in her eyes.

He waved his hands.

"Just dinner. Nothing really, um, fancy. Thought we could just hit a bar or something, I don't know."

She smiled and put a hand on his sleeve. His face visibly brightened. His voice tapered away in his throat.

"Brilliant," he said quietly, staring at her hand. "Eight pm, then."


	4. Chapter 4

They wandered in circles around Quincy Market until he finally dragged her into a mobbed bar. Some college football game was on television, and the bar was livid with the sounds of cheers and boos. The hostess kept them waiting for twenty minutes, and then finally crammed them into a small corner, in between some family and a couple so engrossed in the game that they left their potato skins untouched.

Chell played with her hands in her lap, trying her best to block out the shouts. The noise seemed to be having an equally damaging effect on Wheatley; he couldn't stop tugging on his blue shirt collar. Neither had even touched the menus.

"Too loud!" she shouted over the fallout from a field goal.

"What?"

"It's too loud!" she shouted again.

"What?"

She flagged a waiter, told him thanks, but no thanks, and took Wheatley out of the bar.

"Thanks," he sighed.

"I don't like crowds," she replied.

There was a tense moment where they stood on the cobblestone streets and looked around. Everywhere appeared to be the same: rowdy, noisy, and reeking of overpriced booze. They were thoroughly out of luck here; Wheatley's idea of a "casual date" did not jive with either of their ideas of a good time.

Chell turned to him and smiled.

"Let's walk."

* * *

She led him to a small restaurant in the North End. She liked eating there on weeknights, to break herself away from her quiet, nondescript life. The lighting was low, and although the room was tiny, only a few diners shared the space with them. No one ever paid any attention to her when she dined here alone, and no one paid any attention to them now.

When the waiter came over, Wheatley struggled with the name of some overly complex Italian dish, she ordered, and then they were left to their own devices.

He swallowed and grinned at her. His hands were trembling. "Much better than the bar."

"I like this place." She leaned back and sipped her water. He had ordered wine; she watched as he gulped some down, made a face, and then placed it back on the table.

Wheatley looked away. A dull flush rose in his cheeks.

"You're shaking," she said.

"I know." He gave an odd little shiver. "Mum always said I had, um, a bit of a nervous humour."

Chell giggled. "I'm that scary?"

He laughed. She saw the tension in his shoulders disappear as he looked up at her.

"I wouldn't say scary," he said. "More like...'dangerous.' Yes, that's it."

Chell raised an eyebrow, still smiling. "I'm dangerous?"

"Yeah, like...you've got that _air, _you know. 'I'm a dynamite girl and I won't stand for unequal pay for women!' Or something like that."

She turned her eyes to the ceiling. "So feminists are dangerous?"

"I wouldn't say that. You just l_ook_ dangerous."

He flushed a deeper red and waved his hands. "Sorry. Poor example. You just look, erm...assertive. Maybe not dangerous."

She looked back at him.

He reached across the table and brushed her hand. She didn't budge. "Not dangerous. You just..." He gestured vaguely with his other hand, then took her hand in both of his. "You know what to do."

She sat there, mouth pressed thin, staring at his enormous hands engulfing one of her delicate ones. She smirked.

Wheatley followed her gaze and immediately let go.

"Oh, God, no, I'm-"

"It's fine." Chell laughed. "Really."

"I didn't...I didn't mean to."

He wiped his hands on his pants over and over, as if trying to make them forget what holding hands even was. He shook his head and tightly squeezed his eyes shut. His trembling increased.

Her smirk faded. Something quiet and warm overtook her. She reached under the table and placed her hand gently on one of his.

As if on cue, he stilled and looks back at her with his wide, blue eyes. He looked so terrified that she took his other hand, too, and squeezed it.

"Wheatley," she said slowly, "It's _fine_."

He was still shaking so badly that Chell had to focus on keeping her own hands still. He swallowed and held her gaze.

"Just ask first before you do that," she continued. "It's not really my thing. But I don't mind."

"Okay," said Wheatley, his voice small and bashful.

She smiled. After a few moments, he smiled back.

* * *

They ate and made their way back to the T. Chell let him hold hands with her; he was still trembling, but as they walked, she felt the tremors fade away into nothing. By the long stairs near the Government Center station he was squeezing her hand so tightly that Chell saw no other option but to squeeze back just as tightly.

"Where are you headed?" Chell asked.

"I have to leave at Park Street," he said, and then trailed off into silence. He was still holding her hand.

The unspoken question hung in the air between them.

They stared at each other, then looked away. All around them, there was the hustle and bustle of Boston on a Saturday night, all cocksure college kids and young couples, and the hard-luck crowd with their bags and their disheveled clothes and their sadness, and the parents trying to get away, trying to have a good time, trying to forget their convoluted and complex lives back home. All around them was a world so teeming with life, and yet still the silence hung between them, just as solid and real as if it had happened in a quiet room.

Finally, she broke it.

"I live in Brookline," she said. "Do you want to follow me there?"

Then Wheatley squeezed her hand so hard she thought he was going to break it.

"Brilliant," he said, and grinned. Chell giggled again, that strange warm and quiet something building in her stomach.

"Then let's go."

* * *

He rested his head on her shoulder and napped the whole way to her apartment. When she was sure he was too knocked-out to tell, she rested her cheek against his head and watched the stations go by outside the train windows.

* * *

Chell closed the door to her apartment.

"Wow," Wheatley breathed, "this place is _cool_."

She watched as he darted around the sitting room, brushing his hands on her shelves, her small bookcase, her couches, her television. His curiosity reached into everything, made him into a six-foot hummingbird, compelled him to dart around and examine everything that he could see.

"Cleaner than my place," he went on. "Apollo and I are sort of cluttered. You know how it is. You get home late, you forget to clean, you wake up late and forget to clean, the usual. Sometimes I can't even make coffee, I'm so late or knackered or whatever it is. Not that the apartment's a total wreck, mind. Just a bit, um, needing of some good ol' TLC. Certainly whatever you've got going on here. Feng shui."

She leaned back against the door and let him run around her apartment and babble to himself. The something in her gut hadn't gone away yet, and she was kind of wishing it did, because it made her do things like suddenly say his name aloud.

"Wheatley."

He stopped and looked up from a painting hanging on her wall.

Chell uncrossed her arms and walked forward.

Wheatley didn't move as she strode towards him. He stood there, hunched over, looking far too big for his body, like a puppy that had just grown new paws. He straightened up when she reached him.

Chell simply stood opposite of him, looking up at his eyes, his big blue eyes, and he stared down at her, looking fearful and tender and sort of cuter than she'd ever admit to herself-

And that silence, that dreadful silence finally broke her, and before she could say otherwise she had taken his face in her hands smashed her lips against his.

Wheatley made a pleasant sort of noise and immediately pulled her closer. His mouth was so soft and warm and inviting and distracted herself so fully from the hush of her apartment, from the daily monotony and quiet of this place; she could even taste the wine still on his lips and she clung to him tighter, and he groaned again and tangled his fingers in her hair.

She was so engrossed in kissing him that she let him pick her up and lead her into her bedroom, where he awkwardly dumped her on her bed and climbed on top of her to keep kissing her, to struggle with her dress. She made quick work of his shirt and pants, but he took longer with her own clothing, and she patiently worked herself out of her garments for him, so he could place that wonderful mouth against her neck and shoulders and breasts and stomach and let her forget that this room was not very big and still silent as ever because Wheatley's mouth was too occupied to talk to her and fill it up.

She remembered images, very pleasant images.

Him rubbing his head against her shoulder and writhing with glee when she reached between his legs.

His tender mouth between her legs, his wide blue eyes looking up at her with such innocence while her toes curled and she cried out.

Their awkward moving together.

His heavy-lidded eyes, his upturned eyebrows, his mouth working but no sound coming out.

Him finishing quickly, her thankfully not far behind.

And him collapsing next to her, snuggling close, and falling asleep without another word, a wide smile on his face.

Chell lied back on her bed and stroked his hair gently. With pride, she noticed that it had totally become mussed during their making love. Had Wheatley been not-so-blissed-out (and asleep), he would have been frustrated over his unkempt hair.

He murmured in his sleep and snuggled closer. One arm wrapped around her midsection and pulled her to him.

Chell looked up at the ceiling and smiled.

She could get used to this.


	5. Chapter 5

Five in the morning.

Her alarm clock woke her up.

Chell rolled over and hit the "OFF" button.

She sat up, rolled her head from side to side. Stretched. Breathed in, breathed out. Her apartment was totally quiet.

Then a loud snore broke the stillness. She whipped around.

Her heart pounded against her chest until she recognized the man in her bed. Wheatley hadn't heard her alarm and was still blissfully asleep, his mouth hanging open. He snored again.

She relaxed and giggled.

Yesterday was Thursday. Today was Friday, and they had work.

Chell slipped out of bed and walked to her wardrobe. On the way, she reached down, picked up last night's condom wrapper, and threw it away.

Part of her was pleasantly sore. She looked back to him.

Even though he was now a scruffy lump in her bed (and was still a scruffy lump in general), she had to admit that he had done well for himself last night.

She smiled and turned back to her wardrobe.

After she got dressed, she looked back at him. He still wasn't awake.

"Wheatley."

She walked over and rubbed his shoulder.

"Mm. Wha?" he murmured, eyes still shut tight. "Wassit?"

"You'll be late," she said. "Get up. You have to go home first."

He sits up, grabs her alarm clock roughly, peers at it. "It's five in the bloody morning! How the fuck-"

Wheatley blinked. He stared at the alarm clock. Then he set the alarm clock down.

Very, very slowly, he turned to face her.

"Oh." He blinked, then grinned at her sheepishly. "Hello, love."

A small flutter rose up in her stomach at his pet name. "Hi."

He fell back against the sheets and ruffled his hair, probably so he could look sexy and laid-back. Instead, his trembling started up again. Chell raised an eyebrow.

"Round two?" he drawled, his voice cracking.

She smirked. "Get out of my bed and go to work."

His sheepish grin returned. "I don't take orders."

"Gladys'll be pissed."

That got him out of bed.

* * *

Wheatley hastily pulled on his clothes from last night, took no less than fifteen minutes to arrange his hair in the mirror, splashed water on his face, and stole a bagel from her kitchen.

He sat next to her on the train and traced lazy circles on her hand. Chell looked away, her chin resting on her palm, smiling to herself.

At the Copley stop, he planted a sloppy kiss on her forehead and let her go. From the station, she watched him watch her as the train began moving. It took him back to the Red Line, back to Southie, back to his apartment and all the while he was still wearing his clothes from last night.

It was six thirty in the morning.

Chell was early.

* * *

"And really, what was he thinking?" Gladys examined her black nails. Her skin was so perfectly porcelain white and her nails so dark, the contrast was striking. "Trying to get the number of his boss. Really, now. Some men will try anything."

Chell continued typing away on her computer, half-listening to Gladys. She had to admit, sometimes her boss's stories were humorous, but she'd be damned before she cracked a smile in front of the woman. Instead, she ignored the woman in the hopes that she'd stop and wander away.

Gladys never did. Gladys left when Gladys felt like it.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Chell knew this, but she liked to frustrate the woman anyway.

Gladys sighed and tapped her nails against the cubicle wall. "What are you doing, anyway? Something useless, I assume."

Chell sniffed and kept typing. A number here, required initials here.

There was a cacaphony of shouts and laughter from the front office. Chell glanced at her computer clock: eleven in the morning.

"I'd like you to visit me sometime. You know how I miss your _voice _in my office."

Some bullshit in the e-mail about how the form was urgent.

Rick crowed, "Hey buddy, is that for me?"

"I'd like to talk with you about-"

_Thump._

Chell didn't look up.

There was silence.

Then Gladys's voice rang out, loud and clear, full of barely-restrained disgust and more than a little glee:

"What are you _doing?"_

Chell looked up.

Peeking over her cubicle was a huge bouquet of red roses, trembling gently.

She stared.

Then a familiar scruffy face peeked around the bouquet.

Wheatley smiled at her. "Surprise."

Chell's heart plummeted into her stomach.

"Oh my God, you moron," Gladys breathed, then threw her head back and laughed.

Chell's face was on fire. She sat, frozen in her seat, while Wheatley kept beaming at her. All around her, the eyes of a dozen curious workers peered around a dozen cubicle walls at the receptionist holding out a bouquet for the mute girl. Some laughed with Gladys, who seemed about to suffocate from laughing so much. Chell didn't take her eyes off Wheatley.

She watched as his face slowly fell amid the laughter. She watched his breath hitch. His blue eyes went watery.

She looked down at her hands and drew her lips into a thin line.

The roses landed on her desk in front of her. Chell started and looked up again.

Wheatley was stumbling back to the front desk, his head down. As he scrambled around the corner, Chell saw a few tears roll down his cheeks.

A pang went through her. She looked down at the roses. Despite their brilliant red, they looked sad and wilted on her desk.

Gladys calmed down and pretended to wipe tears out of her eyes. "I wonder if he does parties. Don't you, Chell?"

Chell kept staring at the roses.

* * *

She kept the bouquet just off to the side. Throughout the day, people kept stopping by, patting her on the back, apologizing on Wheatley's behalf for embarrassing hovered over her and went on and on about how it was a breach of office etiquette, how Wheatley should really be fired, how he doesn't do anything for the company besides leech money and make a fool of himself. Some coworkers told her to throw the roses away. Others told her to give them back to Wheatley. Everyone laughed.

No one told her to keep the roses.

She ignored everyone and kept working.

From the front office, she heard occasional loud jeers, and under them, Wheatley's quiet Bristolian accent, protesting. At one point, he raised his voice against another man's, but that was quick, and after that, she didn't hear him speak again except to answer the phone. Clearly, the entire office had made him their laughing stock. She heard Gladys talking to Craig over lunch.

That afternoon, Chell flipped through her printed forms without really looking at them. The entire day had been barely productive, and she couldn't focus now, with such eerie silence coming from the front desk.

He liked her enough to give her roses.

She tossed the forms to the side and looked at the flowers.

They were a thank-you, she knew.

He had brought the condom last night, "just in case," but she knew from his quiet voice when he had said that that he didn't think "just in case" would ever come at all. He didn't think she'd let him into her apartment, let alone into her bed. He was so excited, so thrilled to be with her, so colorful compared to the other men she had been with. He told her that night that he loved to hear her voice, wanted to hear more of it, wanted to coax it out of her with every gentle touch he gave her. Even if it was a puppy crush, it was the strongest puppy crush she had ever seen.

He had even brought her roses the morning after, even if it had made him dreadfully late for work and cost him what little respect he managed to earn.

Chell looked back to the forms.

Then she stood up.

She could get to them next week.

It was four in the afternoon, and she was tired.

She picked up the bouquet and walked to the front office.

And froze.

Wheatley was resting his cheek on his desk, looking completely defeated.

His hair was messy, and his shirt was even more rumpled than usual. His papers were everywhere; his computer was asleep. One of his hands restlessly squeezed and released a blue stress ball. His eyes were empty and listless.

Chell awkwardly walked around him to the coat closet. He didn't move when she opened the closet door.

She stopped.

She looked down at the roses clutched in her hand.

She looked back to him.

She sighed.

Last night, she had enjoyed herself, too.

She walked slowly over to him. He kept still, aside from squeezing and releasing the stress ball rhythmically, over and over. He didn't even look at her.

Chell fished out a single rose from the bouquet and laid it on the desk in front of his face.

Then she turned and headed back towards the coat closet.

She heard the squeak of an office chair and quick, heavy footsteps behind her.

She turned around and saw that Wheatley's desk was now unoccupied, the rose still where she had left it.

When she turned back around, Wheatley was standing in front of her, holding her coat open with a toothy smile on his face.

Chell smiled and laughed quietly.

"You really liked them," he said breathlessly, hopping back from one foot to the other. "You really did. Everyone took the mickey out of me all day but you liked them, you liked them, you liked them..."

Still smiling, she let him put on her coat and delicately straighten it out. He kept talking.

"And, and, God, you should have seen the look on your face! I thought, oh, Wheatley, you really blew it this time. What bloke gives a girl roses right after he-"

His voice dropped to a whisper. "-_shags her-"_

His voice rose again. "-and not only that, gives her roses in front of everyone at work? Especially in front of _her. _What was I thinking? Really, now, normally I'm a real Casanova as you know, just the true Don Juan, but _flowers! _I was thinking, _bloody flowers,_ Wheatley? But that doesn't matter because you like them and you're taking them home and make sure you give them a lot of water and more of that TLC stuff you've got going on at your place-"

Chell turned around and held out a hand. Wheatley immediately shut up, his eyes wide.

She peeked around him to make sure they were alone, then looked back up at him.

"Wired Puppy. Eight. Tomorrow morning," she whispered.

"Okay," Wheatley mumbled. His smile reappeared, became dreamy. "Have a good night."

As she was walking out the door, he grabbed her sleeve. "Wait."

She paused at the door.

"Can we, um. Do that again?"

She turned around and smirked at him.

The smile on his face grew wider. His eyebrows raised.

"Finish your work first," she mouthed.

Chell headed for the elevator, roses still in hand.


	6. Chapter 6

"You know what I've always wanted to do but never got to do? Smoke after a shag."

She smiled. "You're out of luck. I don't smoke."

He rested his cheek on her chest. "I always thought it would make me sort of...suave. You know, like James Bond. Positively drowning in babes."

That made her throw back her head and laugh. He stuck out his bottom lip. His nearsighted eyes were wide and unseeing in the dim light of her bedroom lamp, but that laugh was something he understood.

She calmed down and smiled at him. "You're fine."

"You've got a lovely laugh," he murmured, and clung tighter to her under the covers. "You know that? You've just..."

She raised her eyebrows.

He sighed and closed his eyes. "A lovely everything."

"That's not true," she said. Her voice was soft and chiding. She stroked his hair. "I'm 'dangerous,' remember?"

"Let's run away," he said suddenly, eyes still closed.

She stopped stroking his hair.

He continued, softly, with a tremor in his voice."Let's just...quit Aperture and go somewhere different, you and I. We could get a little place, kind of like the one you've got going for yourself here, and we could just...change our names and forget that anyone else ever existed. We'd be _free_. We'd be outside of it all, outside of _her _and wearing blazers to work. I- we- could go anywhere in the world. Let's run, Chell."

He took her hand and squeezed it with surprising force.

"Let's run."

She laid her head back and turned her gaze to the ceiling. It did sound wonderful, the idea of taking a new job and forgetting everything, forgetting her strict schedule, the dress code, Gladys' intense presence over them, day in and day out, like an enormous pale hawk. And all the while there would be this nervous man beside her, filling the room up with his voice, filling up that strange emptiness inside her, holding her hand.

But right now, two weeks after he first gave her the roses, it wasn't possible.

She squeezed his hand back.

"You're fine without the cigarette."

He opened his eyes and turned them back to her.

He stared hard at her for a few moments.

Then he simply rubbed his cheek against her chest and succumbed to his usual post-coital sleep.

* * *

They worked their way through the holidays.

He showed up at her apartment as often as he could, always wearing an enormous blue coat. He seemed to have an endless supply of hideous Christmas sweaters, and made a point to wear them whenever he came over. She fed him, napped with him, made love with him, held his hand while he nervously recounted his day, gingerly tiptoed through all the little mistakes and teasing and getting reassigned to tasks, over and over.

She never had much to say. If he asked her how her day went, her response was always the same:

"I'm fine."

And, to tell the truth, she was, mostly. She was growing used to his presence in her life: his shuffling around in her kitchen, him snoring gently in her bed, his clinging hugs and sloppy kisses, his drum beats on her door. He presented her with little gifts, little nothings: nail polish, ribbons, jewelry. For Christmas, he bought her a new tie, powder blue "because it's my favorite color, love, and I want you to think about me when you wear it."

For Christmas, she bought him another Christmas sweater: red and covered with reindeer. He was absolutely thrilled, and wore it to the Wired Puppy with her on the 26th.

At night, he fell into the habit of whispering into her ear while he moved over her, always sweet and entreating and gentle. He said the parts where she talked back to him were his favorite.

* * *

But some part of her grew uneasy.

Chell's life, for the most part, had been spent alone. Men had come and gone, her parents were tentatively there and then not at all. She passed through jobs, useful but always, always faceless. She never spoke to anyone. It was comfortable for her to be lonely.

Now there was someone needy beside her.

Wheatley hung on her. She was his go-to. The snow came plummeting over Boston, and the city fell cold and quiet, and she became his source of warmth. Everywhere she turned, she came face-to-face with his big blue eyes and those thick glasses and that wide, nervous smile.

"Love," he'd always start, "can you do the tiniest thing for me?"

He was always there. The silence she had grown accustomed to was gone, for better or for worse.

And she was stuck with him. For better or for worse.

And that made her very, very on-edge.

She did not like to be depended upon.

* * *

Somewhere in January, he noticed.

"Love?"

Chell tensed, in the middle of washing the dishes. In the window, she could see his tall form, bent over and unsure in the doorway. He had on her red Christmas sweater.

"Love?"

She turned around.

"Um." He wrung his hands, sighed again. Looked off to the side. "I don't...know if you've noticed, but..."

He looked up at her again. "You haven't spoken to me in three days."

She stared at him. The dish suddenly felt heavy in her hand, and she set it down. She turned towards the window; white-knuckled, she gripped the counter.

To tell the truth, she hadn't even noticed that she had stopped talking around him.

"Love?"

Chell scratched the back of her neck.

"I'm sorry," she said finally. Her voice sounded rough and unfamiliar. "That happens."

"Oh, for God's sake. Well, if you're going to be mute again, you could at least warn me first." In the window, she watched him puff out his chest. "Give me a little heads-up, you know. 'Hey, Wheatley, hope you don't mind, but I'm not going to talk to you for three days!' Instead of-"

She whipped around and strode towards him. He recoiled away from her. The bravado in his eyes disappeared.

Chell stretched out a hand and gently caressed his cheek. Wheatley visibly relaxed.

"Chell..."

"Wheatley, go home," she said. "Please."

His eyes went wide. After a few moments, she saw tears forming.

"What?" he said finally.

She sighed. "You're always here," she said, more gently this time. She continued to stroke his cheek. "Don't you have someplace to sleep?"

"But love, I-"

Chell placed a finger on his lips. He fell silent again and blinked at her.

"Go home," she said.

When a single tear rolled down his cheek, she smiled and added: "I still like you."

He perked. "You're not dumping me?"

She shook her head, her smile growing wider.

His brows furrowed. "Then why are you sending me home? I'm..."

His hands slid to hers, and he grasped them tightly.

When Wheatley spoke next, his voice was quiet. "I'm still welcome here, aren't I? Old Wheatley and Chell, living together like always? That's still happening, isn't it? That's not over?"

"It's not," she said, then paused.

How did she tell this man, with his fearful eyes and his long history of being replaced, fired, shifted around, that she was not leaving him?

She finally settled for: "You can come back next Wednesday."

Wheatley leaned forward, pulled her into his arms, squeezed hard. "That's a long time. Awfully long time, if I'm to be honest. Three whole days."

He released her. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

She took his hands again, looked down at them. His tremor had re-appeared, and she rubbed her thumbs in circular motions against his palm. As if on cue, the tremor stopped, and she heard him release a dreamy sigh.

"Wheatley," she said finally, "I need some time to think. Sort through all this..."

"Amphigory?" he offered, with a small, hopeful smile.

She sighed.

Then, she laughed, and he took the opportunity to lean down and press his lips to hers. She leaned in.

When he pulled away, she smiled, and said: "Amphigory."


	7. Chapter 7

The absence didn't keep him from trying to reach her.

Wheatley sent her no less than twenty texts over the rest of the weekend. He sounded desperate, lonely; every text asked her if she would just see him, call him, do something to defeat his loneliness.

_Let's get coffee._

_I liked your outfit at work today but wished I could go home with you._

_I miss you, love._

_Do you miss me?_

_Do you, Chell?_

She only responded to three texts, total. Each response said the same thing:

Wait until Wednesday.

As Wednesday approached, his behavior became more erratic.

He asked her if she was seeing other men. He asked what she was doing with all this "free time," now that he wasn't around. He squeezed her shoulders when he put on her coat at work. He growled at anyone of the male persuasion who mentioned her in casual conversation.

When he finally came by Wednesday, he was hungry and decidedly wanting.

But by the time she undressed him, he had gone right back to his tender, sweet self. Wheatley talked to Chell about wanting to run away with her as if nothing was wrong. He held her hand, he kissed her awake the next morning, he clung to her while she made them breakfast, and thankfully, it was all nothing new. The wolf in him went away.

Chell behaved as if nothing was wrong, rode the train with him to Copley as if nothing was wrong.

But she knew something was wrong, and it left her feeling as tense as if she had brought Gladys into her bed and not this charming, trembling wreck of a man.

So she watched him more and spoke to him less.

And the less she spoke, the more nervous he became, and the more he talked, and the more data she could gather. Chell believed, more than anything, that fear could reveal one's true self.

And Wheatley, though he was getting more aggressive by the day, had his fair share of fear.

* * *

On Friday afternoon, Gladys called Chell into her office.

The walls were a dull gray-blue. Gladys enjoyed decorating with cubes, big and small, all in black and white. A lone prism cast a rainbow of light across the ceiling.

Gladys' clear glass desk and impressively-large Mac monitor shone in the golden afternoon light. The window behind the desk looked out over the Back Bay.

On the desk, right in Chell's line of vision, was a tiny clock shaped like a yellow songbird. Its mouth was open in mid-song (or, Chell dryly noted, mid-scream); it ticked away in the quiet of the room.

Gladys leaned across her desk and steepled her pale fingers. She stared down at Chell's shoes, looking vaguely disappointed.

"It has come to my attention, Chell," she said, one eyebrow raised, "that you and the receptionist have been...well, involved."

Chell said nothing.

Gladys's eyes swiveled up to meet hers. The two women made eye contact. "Alright, look. I know that you think that I think this is disgusting." She smiled. "And you're right. But that's beside the point." She leaned back in her large white chair. "I suppose that you're wondering how I know."

Chell said nothing, but her heart began to beat a little faster.

"The little idiot won't stop talking about 'his' girl, and frankly, it's not difficult to determine who 'his girl' is."

Chell bunched her hands into fists.

Gladys snorted. "Don't worry. You won't lose your job because of your poor taste. I'm just here to give some friendly advice. We have to stick together, after all."

Chell continued to stare evenly at her boss. Gladys spread her hands and shrugged.

"I'd rather not have one of my workers distracted. Even if your work load is far from taxing. I could probably go harder on you, to be honest."

Chell was given the most work out of anyone in the office, and they both knew that, but Gladys was not one to resist the opportunity for an insult.

"And the last thing I need is for you to wear blue. It's even more unflattering on your...generous figure than orange is."

Gladys turned her back to Chell and looked out of the window. The city was growing steadily darker; the snow on top of the buildings glittered. Down below, the cars looked like toys.

"All I'm saying is that you can do better. Yes, even you. If I didn't care about you so much, you wouldn't be here right now, taking some invaluable advice from me. I would let you and him kill each other."

With Gladys' back to her, Chell rolled her eyes.

"My advice, Chell, is this: go his apartment. Then you'll see what a bad match you two really are. And then I'll be right. As always."

Gladys turned back around and began typing on her computer. "You can leave now."

* * *

"My apartment?" Wheatley stuttered. He propped himself up next to her. "Why my apartment?"

"You're always here," Chell said calmly.

"But that doesn't...you don't want my place. Granted, it's a total lovepad, don't get me wrong, but...well, Apollo's there. And he doesn't really understand adult matters. Like girlfriends."

"He has a girlfriend."

Wheatley curled his lip and flopped back down. "Look, all I'm saying is, right, it's not a good place for us. We've got everything we need right here! We've got, you know, food, a working TV, heating. It's the middle of bloody January, you'll freeze to death at my flat.

Chell quirked a smile. "You're just here for heating?"

Wheatley grumbled and turned onto his side, pulling the blankets over his head. "I'm here for you." He peeked out of the blankets and looked over his shoulder at her. "I mean, I wouldn't be here if you weren't so...um...well, let's just say that if you weighed a few more pounds, I wouldn't be here."

She stared at him.

He sat straight up, waving his arms. "No, no, that's not what I meant! You'd look lovely with a bit more meat on you. Not that you don't...oh, you're not made of _meat_, but you get what I'm saying, don't you? Big girls? Brilliant, they are. You know, all jiggly and...and curvy. And totally cool. Yes, that would be fine with me, if you put on some weight-"

"Wheatley," she said firmly, "Your apartment. Tomorrow. Ten AM."

The skinny man deflated. "Why?"

Chell looked away. "I'm curious."

He rolled towards her and kissed her shoulder. "I want to take you to some nice mansion or something. A castle. Not a _flat_. I promise, when we're really together, I'll get us someplace nice."

"Ten AM, Wheatley." She switched sides so she was facing away from him, and pretended to be asleep. He rubbed his forehead against her back and pled with her for a few minutes before, finally, he fell asleep. His snoring filled the tiny room.

Chell reached behind her and took Wheatley's hand. He whimpered in his sleep.

Part of her felt bad for pressuring him, but she had to wonder what incriminating evidence Gladys had against him.

She closed her eyes. She could feel his heart beating away against her back.

* * *

At ten, they took the Green Line to Park Street, then went down the Red Line together.

The subway tunnels gave way to bridges high above the ground. Skyscrapers gave way to tall, thin houses, with little patches of brown and green for front yards. The air was crisp, and the sunlight shone in the eyes of the tired passengers on the train.

Wheatley took her to a red house several blocks away from the Red Line tracks.

The entrance hall of the house was dim. A staircase reached high above them. Dark wood floors creaked under Wheatley's tattered sneakers as he walked straight forward to a second door. _316 _hung on bronze letters next to it. She faintly heard music playing on the other side.

"This is my place," Wheatley mumbled. "Not much, I know. But I plan on getting something different. Probably with you, if I'm honest."

And then he opened the door.


	8. Chapter 8

Morning sunlight filtered into an open, messy living room.

Wheatley was right: the whole apartment was freezing cold, barely warmer than the snow-covered streets outside. Takeout boxes were everywhere. Two threadbare couches, with knit blankets on their backs, sat at odd angles around a small television. The Science Channel was playing on mute. Chell spotted a discarded cardigan, decorated with tiny black skulls, just outside an ajar door: the source of the strange, ambient music.

The front door swug shut behind them.

"Apollo!" said Wheatley.

A rustling came from the room where the music was playing. Chell, staring at it, let Wheatley remove her coat and hang it on a metal hook in the wall.

The door opened further, and Apollo stepped out.

He was tiny, just about as tall as Chell was; his cheeks were so round and his body was so frail that, had she known nothing about him, she might have assumed he was a child. His brown, bloodshot eyes peeked out from a mop of curly auburn hair. He was true Bostonian pale, whiter than a sheet of paper, with freckles scattered across his nose and cheeks. He had jammed a baggy gray beanie on his head, his sweatshirt had a nebula on it, and he was barefoot. The lack of frostbite on his toes was, in Chell's mind, a miracle.

Apollo mumbled, "Hey, lady," at her before flashing a mouthful of crooked teeth.

"Mate, this is Chell," Wheatley said from beside her. A hint of annoyance crept into his voice as he continued, "You know, my girlfriend."

Chell nodded at Apollo and didn't say anything.

"Wanna go to space, Chell?" Apollo asked.

Wheatley grit his teeth and said, "Not now, Apollo." His hand gripped Chell's tightly. "Come on, Chell."

But she stayed rooted to the spot, eyes fixed on Apollo's left hand. It had slipped out of his sweatshirt pocket long enough to flash an Altoids tin at her.

Chell raised both eyebrows.

She was not stupid. He was not offering her mints.

So she shook her head and Apollo, with a shrug, re-pocketed the tin, turned around, and shuffled back into his room. The door closed. The music became louder.

Chell looked up at Wheatley. He was avoiding her gaze.

"He likes to do that. Funny little bloke." He laughed weakly. "Your breath is just fine. Perfectly fresh, no adjustments needed. High marks in my book. What in the bloody hell was he thinking?"

She said nothing, but continued to stare at him.

Finally, Wheatley sighed, looked at her, and ran a hand through his hair. "Let's...my room. Right. You should probably see that."

Then he added: "Welcome. Make yourself at home."

He led her past a tiny kitchen, packed with full shopping bags. A few pictures were taped to the refrigerator. Chell paused to examine them.

Most of the photos were of Apollo and a sullen-looking Wheatley in various places around the city: in bars, at concerts, on rooftops, in disheveled apartments like theirs. Some pictures showed a tiny girl Chell didn't recognize: an emaciated, smiling thing with long golden curls.

"Who's that?" Chell asked.

Wheatley backtracked and glanced at the fridge. "Apollo's girlfriend. She's not too bad, herself. Gives Apollo a load of Altoids once in a while and asks _me_ a load of questions, all of which I know the answer to because of my intelligence, then she leaves and takes him with. Still not sure where they go."

"Really," Chell said, then walked past him into the door he had been leading her to.

Wheatley's bedroom, which was directly across from Apollo's, was cramped. The shades were drawn, and shafts of sunlight fell on the wood floor. A hamper full of laundry was pushed into a corner. His dresser was covered with bottles of hair products and cheap cologne; a quick glance into the adjoining bathroom showed much of the same near his sink. An unmade bed, with powder-blue sheets, sat directly under the shuttered windows. A desk was right next to the door, its surface obscured by dozens of work forms and a sleeping laptop.

He sat down on his bed and stared up at her. She closed the door.

"You weren't kidding," she said quietly.

He looked down at his sneakers. "Told you it wasn't much. But it's mine." He looked up at her and gave her a bashful smile. "Do you like it?"

She wasn't one to lie, but his lips were trembling, and his eyes were big and sad. He knew that this space didn't make him look attractive at all.

Chell shrugged and gave him a smile.

Wheatley exhaled slowly. "Well, now that we're here, I might as well share something with you. That is," he added, his eyes swiveling up to hers, "if you want to share it with me."

She raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms. "Depends. Show me."

He sprung up and walked over to the desk. One shaky hand ran through his coiffed hair as the other yanked open a drawer. She walked forward and peered through the dim light at its contents.

But before she could get a good look, he stuck his hands in and rummaged around, obscuring her view. When his hands, at last, withdrew from the drawer, the sunlight caught blown glass and a lighter held in one palm and a bag of _something_ in the other.

She caught sight of something dark pink in the back of the drawer before he slammed it shut.

Chell looked up at the blown glass. It was shaped like a giraffe: its body was fat, its legs were stubby, its back was slightly indented into a small bowl. Its neck was long, and its lips were pursed into a small "o" of surprise.

Wheatley sat on the bed and went to work.

His fingers suddenly became deft and sure. The bag was open in one second, the grass poured into the bowl the next. A flick of the thumb, and a small flame appeared. Its orange light flickered against his face as he placed his lips to the giraffe's mouth and lit the bowl.

He inhaled, held the breath, his cheeks turning bright red with the effort.

He exhaled. The thick gray smoke curled in the darkness of the room.

Wheatley looked up at her, gave her another bashful smile. "Would you like to partake, my lady?" He outstretched his hand, the (now blackened) giraffe sitting neatly in the center of his palm.

Chell stared at him.

Was this what Gladys wanted her to see? Her beau getting high during his free time?

Was this supposed to mean something to her?

Wheatley's blue eyes were big, questioning.

The pieces slid together in her mind: Apollo's vacant look and long absences from the apartment, the Altoid tin Wheatley's desire to stay away from this place as long as possible, Gladys' disgust.

She backed away.

"No thanks."

He withdrew his hand as if stung. "Not even a little?"

Her eyes darted to the drawer, then to him. If he was so appalled at Apollo's behavior, then maybe there was hope for him yet.

And there was nothing she liked more than proving Gladys wrong.

"It's not for me."

Wheatley relaxed. "Suit yourself." He reached for the lighter and lit the bowl, inhaled, held it, exhaled. "Frankly, it feels tremendous like you wouldn't believe."

Chell walked over and sat down. "Sounds great."

"Well, it's your loss, love." He lit the bowl, inhaled, held it, exhaled. Then he rested his head on her shoulder and closed his eyes. "Whenever you need something, just...just let me know, and I'll give it to you."

He continued, "If it were up to me, I would be with you forever. Did you know that? I would give you everything. I would, you know, get a real gig, something better than typing all day. I would give you nice dresses, and caviar and wine, and you could have all of it because I'm not very fond of wine, myself, if I'm honest. We'd be free, Chell, you and I. It'd be absolutely brilliant. Isn't that what life is all about, at the end of the day? Being free and..." He gestured vaguely at something in front of him, then gave up, lit the bowl, inhaled, held it, exhaled. "And whatever it is that people are when they're not miserable."

"Happy?" she said with a smile.

He giggled and nuzzled her shoulder. "Happy as a fish in water, lady. And...and we could shag a lot, and not care about anything. No Gladys, or deadlines, or suits that I don't even like wearing very much."

Wheatley's hand wandered to her hip and brushed against it. "Just you and me. Alone. You could wear more of those nice sweaters. And more blue. I'd put you in a lot of blue."

It wandered up, up, up. Chell watched it travel up her body and to her chest. "That's my favorite color on you," he whispered. His smile grew wider. "Did you know that?"

His hand cupped her breast.

"Give me that," Chell said suddenly, and she took the bowl.

* * *

When he was fast asleep next to her, she opened the window shade. Wheatley grumbled at the sudden abundance of bright sunlight, rolled closer to the wall, and continued to snore.

She brushed the back of her fingers against his cool shoulder. The buzz was finally starting to wear off. Her thoughts turned to Gladys' warning again.

_Go to his apartment. _

She turned her head and scanned Wheatley's tiny room. Her boss hadn't given her that warning for nothing; Gladys, after all, liked to hinge on every tiny detail she could get her manicured hands on. There had to be something, however small, in this room that had gotten her boss up in arms, and Chell was willing to bet it was not the dirty laundry, or even the weed.

Chell swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her toes made contact with the floor. Shivering in the cold, she padded to the desk drawer.

She reached down, then turned around to look back at the sleeping form of Wheatley.

Then she opened it and reached in, reached deep, reached way into the back. Her fingers made contact with a thick plastic bottle.

She narrowed her eyes and pulled it out. The fluid inside was thick and dark pink; this had to be the object she had seen before.

She turned it over and examined the label.

Cough syrup.

Chell took in a sharp breath and looked back at Wheatley. He shifted in his sleep, but he hadn't heard her rummaging around.

She exhaled and looked back at the bottle.

Maybe he was sick.

Doubtful: he hadn't heard him cough recently.

She pursed her lips.

This was the detail Gladys had wanted her to find.

On second thought, how had Gladys known what his apartment looked like?

She replaced the bottle gently.

Had she been here?

"Chell?"

She jumped and closed the drawer as fast as she could. She turned around.

Wheatley was blinking sleepily at her. "I'm afraid that's all the dope I've got, love. I could get us more."

Chell shrugged and walked back to the bed. "Maybe another time."

She lied next to him, and he snuggled up to her and kissed her temple. "That's my girl."

As he dipped down to kiss her neck, she took deep breaths and tried to stop her heart from pounding.


	9. Chapter 9

She sat down in her cubicle on a Monday morning and sifted through her e-mails.

It had been a week since she had first been to Wheatley's apartment. He had come back to her apartment yesterday morning and, beaming, had held out a small bag of pot.

She had gently pushed it back towards him. "You smoke it."

His face had fallen; something like shame had crossed his face. "It's for you, love."

"I'm fine," she had said, "You might need it."

Chell stopped typing.

His mouth had twisted, his brows had furrowed.

Chell realized then, sitting alone in her cubicle, that she had finally gotten to see Wheatley angry, if only for a split second in time.

As quickly as it had come, the angry look had left, and his eyebrows had slowly turned upwards. He had started backing out of her apartment.

Then his gaze had turned to his shoes, and he had shut the front door, leaving her alone.

She felt someone standing next to her cubicle. Chell sighed. She knew precisely who without looking up.

Two slim pieces of paper fell next to her keyboard. Chell glanced at them.

Tickets to the Museum of Fine Arts.

"Come with me," Gladys muttered to her, then turned on her heel and strode in the direction of the front desk.

* * *

Lilith's brown, naked body clung to the wall. She was hunched over, animalistic, inhuman. There was nothing next to her, as if everything on the wall and in the room had fled.

Everyone, that is, except for Chell.

She peered sideways at Chell with glass eyes. Chell stared coolly back.

After a few minutes, she glanced at the plaque underneath the bronze sculpture.

Lilith, 1994.

"Do you know who Lilith is, Chell?" Gladys said. She stood some distance away, her red lips curved into a smile as she stared up at the predatory woman on the wall. "The first wife of the Biblical Adam. She left him when he saw her as inferior to him." Gladys scoffed. "An inspiring story. Makes me want to get out there and really do something with my life."

She raised a pale finger to her chin, tilted her head in mock thought. "Oh, wait. I am doing something with my life."

The silence of the MFA's Modern Art gallery pressed in on them. In the next room over, a child was playing in an gold beaded curtain hanging from the high ceiling. She passed in and out of it, each time looking up to watch the beads move. The sporadic clacking noise of the curtain echoed against the wood floors.

"Why," Chell said, staring at Lilith, "did you want me to see Wheatley's apartment?"

The hush of the gallery fell on them. Even the girl passing through the curtain seemed to pause. Chell felt the weight of Gladys' eyes on her, but didn't make eye contact. Never once had she spoken in her boss' presence; Chell's interview was conducted via Aperture and not via Gladys.

But Gladys knew Chell had to speak to earn her job. What she didn't know was that Chell would only speak when absolutely necessary. She would not speak if provoked; she would not speak if Gladys willed it.

Only when necessary.

This counted as necessary.

Gladys' white heels clicked against the floor as she sauntered away from Lilith, away from Chell. Her head was bowed as she watched her own steps.

"You're making a bad decision," she said finally. "And as your boss, it is my job to inform you when you're making a bad decision. Like right now."

Gladys looked back at her, her dark eyes staring straight at Chell. "You are making the worst possible decision you could ever make. It's almost impressive how bad it is." She wasn't smiling.

"That doesn't answer my question."

Gladys' eyes narrowed, and she turned around. She crossed her arms and looked up at the lights.

"I didn't want him in my office," she said finally. "I wanted him somewhere else. Mr. Johnson decided he would be best with me for whatever reason."

She looked down. Chell saw her black nails digging into her pale arms.

"And I believed him. I didn't ask questions. So the little tumor came to work for me."

"How," Chell said firmly, "did you know there was codeine?"

"His drug tests," Gladys replied. She let out a short laugh and turned around, her smile coy. "There are ways, Chell."

"How did you know it was codeine and not something else?"

At this, Gladys's face fell.

Then, suddenly, her lips curled into a snarl. "Further analysis," she snapped. "Unless you forget that we work for a scientific company."

"What does he use?"

"Cough syrup, you mute-"

Gladys' eyes grew wide. She stepped backwards.

Chell stepped forwards.

"In his desk drawer. At the back." Chell narrowed her eyes. "You knew exactly what it was he was taking."

"It's not difficult to figure it out," Gladys hissed, but she was beginning to slouch, ever-so-slightly, closer to the wood floor.

Chell gritted her teeth. "How did you know?"

Briefly, Gladys' eyes flitted to Lilith, flitted back to Chell. She swallowed.

"You don't know how it feels, stooping that low," she said finally. "Do you know who he is?"

Gladys straightened up, her hands balled into tight fists. She forced her words through gritted teeth.

"He is Cave's nephew. That little moron wouldn't step foot on Copley's property if it weren't for Mr. Johnson.

"I fought to get to the position I was in. Do you realize that? I did everything for Cave. I served his coffee, I filed his papers. I did everything but shine his shoes. And that...that idiot was due to be my boss because Cave loved him. He was due to run the Boston branch instead of me. You, Chell, would have been under him. In case you'd like a mental image of how successful that would be, try imagining a wrecking ball hitting the office. That would have been better for the company than what he'd do.

"He had an easy way up. I worked for my position, and he..."

Gladys looked away. Chell's breath caught.

"I needed an easy way to stop him," Gladys whispered. "I needed a way to shut that little moron up for good and keep him from taking what was mine."

"You..."

Gladys raised her chin, looked down at the floor to Chell's right. "I got him to plead with Cave to give me the position instead. It doesn't take much." Her gaze swiveled to Chell's. "You must have figured out by now that he's disgustingly simple."

"The codeine..."

"...showed up on the drug tests as morphine. I connected the dots."

Gladys crossed her arms. "I looked in his room while he was asleep and found the bottle of cough syrup. When he woke up, I showed him the bottle, and threatened to tell Mr. Johnson if he didn't agree to let me take his job. And it worked."

Then a smile spread across Gladys' face, toothy and threatening. "I assume the cough syrup is still there. I should have told you to check."

Some part of Chell stirred. It lifted its head, sniffed the air, stretched.

Then it grew hot and angry, made Chell grit her teeth and clench her hands into tight, painful fists. Her heart beat a little faster.

She leaned in towards Gladys. Gladys didn't budge.

"If you hurt him-"

"Please. He's not worth my time." Her smile fell, and she spread her hands in front of her. "And he's not worth yours. You can do better. You and I both know that."

Chell's eyes widened. She stepped away.

"Go home, Chell."

Gladys folded her arms again and started walking briskly away from Lilith.

* * *

"I love you," Wheatley sighed into her neck that night as he came.


	10. Chapter 10

The realization that her boss had been where she was, that the woman had gotten there first, that she had seized the opportunity to gain power over the both of them, ate her up inside for weeks.

Leaves appeared on the trees, flowers bloomed, and the birds began to sing again.

Chell stopped wearing her coat to work.

* * *

He was high at least once a week now.

"Let's run away," he kept muttering. She rolled her hips in time with his, and stayed quiet.

He didn't notice. He groaned and arched his back. "Let's run away, let's run away. I'll make you head of the company, love, I know the right people. We can send _her_ back to her place. She doesn't deserve to be there, I do, _we_ do. Let's run away. Let's run away. I love you, Chell."

* * *

The next week, Wheatley took her by both her hands and led her into his room. The air was heavy with the sweet, thick smell of pot smoke.

The door swung shut, and he pulled her into a hungry kiss and reached under her shirt.

Chell looked away.

It was tempting to fall into the same haze Wheatley was now constantly in, to slip into the same blissful ignorance he swam in on a daily basis.

But she had to know what happened.

She gently pushed him away. He stumbled back and blinked sleepily at her.

"Wheatley," she said.

"Hm?" He grinned lazily in her face.

Chell narrowed her eyes at him.

She took a deep breath, and let it go.

"What happened between you and Gladys?"

Wheatley's smile vanished. His blue eyes were wide in the dim light of his room. Outside, a robin was singing away. Cars rumbled along the street, breaking the eerie silence that had descended upon them.

"What," Chell said, enunciating every word, "did our boss do to you?"

Wheatley shook his head slowly, never taking his eyes off of her. "Nothing. I have no bloody idea what you're talking about."

Chell stepped towards him. He shuddered and took several steps backwards.

"What was that?" she asked.

Wheatley pursed his lips together. "Nothing happened, love. Nothing at all."

Chell narrowed her eyes and raised an eyebrow. "Nothing?"

He laughed nervously, spread his shaking hands before him. "Why would you think that? We hardly know each other, you know, just working in the same office, never seeing each other, what..." He laughed: a high-pitched, weak noise. "What are you talking about? Why would...is this about the time I jammed the copier and backed up all our documents for two weeks? Is that it? Because-"

Chell leaned back and gave him a half-smile. "Why are you so afraid of her?"

"Because, well, I'm not sure, b-because she pays my bills? Not as if that's important or anything. I don't do this for _fun_, I don't sit there and get the piss taken out of me, that's n-not my idea of a good time...I didn't call her up on a weekend, I didn't say, 'Hey, cutie, mind coming over for a-'"

"You fucked."

Wheatley took a step back. "No, that's not it-"

"You brought her back to your apartment, and you fucked her. She wanted to be the boss of the company, but you were going to be the boss, so she offered you sex in exchange for the position. And you accepted."

"That's not true, I'm not listening! Where did you even _get _this from?"

Chell ignored his question and pressed forward, her voice quiet.

"You wanted to fuck her more than you wanted to rule the company."

"That's not true!" Wheatley howled. He clutched at his hair, crouched down into a little ball on the floor, shivering. "I've never spoken more than ten words to her." He let out a loud sob and hunched over on the floor, beating the ground with his fists.

"It's bullshit, isn't it?" Chell whispered, crouching on the floor next to him. "You wanting to run Aperture."

He became quiet, raised his head, and glared at her. His eyes were red and watery.

"It's her fault," he hissed. "She took her clothes off. I-I couldn't help myself."

"You don't want to be in charge," she said. "You don't want me in charge."

"Yes, I do!" He howled again, then pressed his forehead to the floor. "More than anything. More than anything. I'd give all my money to be there."

"You'd rather fuck her."

"I'd never fuck that _slag_ again." He let out another sob and shook his head. "It's not my fault, it's not my fault...she..."

Chell stood. "You could have taken over. Why didn't you?"

"She threatened me with something," he murmured, voice thick with tears.

"With what?" she asked softly.

Wheatley said nothing, and fell still.

Chell sighed quietly. "With what, Wheatley?"

"It's none of your business," he snapped, not moving from the floor. "I have a private life too, you know, Miss Mysterious. It's not all about you."

_I showed him the bottle, and threatened to tell Mr. Johnson if he didn't agree to let me take his job._

Chell had to know.

"Wheatley," she said gently, "is there anything else besides weed?"

"No," he mumbled.

"Nothing?"

Wheatley stayed quiet.

Chell felt her stomach drop. For once, it seemed, Gladys had been right.

She slowly backed out of the room. "I'm going home," she said.

He didn't budge.

She slowly closed his door, picked her way through the living room, and walked out of the apartment, into the late afternoon sun.

* * *

She didn't sleep that night. The silence of her apartment pressed in on her.

* * *

The next morning, while she was typing at her desk, she heard a commotion in the lobby.

"No, no, _please_, give me a second chance, I'm a good worker, I promise-"

"You tested positive."

"You can't do this!" Wheatley's voice rose above Gladys's.

Chell stopped typing. All around the office, curious heads poked out of cubicles. All eyes were glued to the single wall separating them from the reception area.

"Actually, I _can_. Company policy says that I am authorized to personally fire anyone who interferes with life in my office..."

Wheatley let out a small, tearful whine. "No, _please_, I can make it up to you!"

Chell stood up and strode towards the lobby. No one followed her, but she heard Rick let out a low whistle from the back of the room.

"...via many methods, including, but not limited to..."

Chell turned the corner.

"...use of drugs while on the clock," Gladys said, her chin tilted upwards while she spoke to the slumped, desperate man before her, "or having a distracting _office affair_." At this, her eyes slid over to Chell, and she smirked.

Chell stood her ground, and glared at Gladys.

Wheatley didn't notice. He stepped forward and, hands shaking, grasped the edges of Gladys's white work blazer. Gladys's attention snapped back to him, and she recoiled in disgust. "Please, Gladys. I'll do anything."

"I'm very sorry," she replied, her voice sickly sweet as she pried Wheatley's hands off her clothes, "but that's just how things work around here."

Wheatley gritted his teeth. "You don't know that I'm on drugs. That's ridiculous. How do _you_ know?"

And Gladys's smile slowly grew wider. Her white teeth flashed in the fluorescent light.

She turned to Chell.

Chell's hands balled into fists.

"Oh, but I _do_," she drawled. "I already have your positive drug test, taken based on _reasonable _suspicion. And another worker confirmed the drug use for me."

At that moment, Wheatley turned his head and noticed Chell standing there. His eyes grew wide; she could almost hear the gears turning in his head, heard him processing the lie Gladys had just told him.

Chell pursed her lips together and stepped back. She shook her head slowly and held up her hands.

_It wasn't me_, she mouthed, but the damage had already been done. Wheatley's eyes filled with tears.

Gladys sauntered past Chell. "You're fired, you little moron. Pack up your belongings and be out of my sight within the hour. Never come back here again."

When Gladys was gone, Chell strode towards him. "Wheatley, I didn't-"

"Shut up," he snapped, a few tears running down his cheeks.

He took his blazer, and ran out of Aperture.

The office door shut slowly behind him, and Chell was alone.


	11. Chapter 11

_Oh, girl, this boat is sinking_

_There's no sea left for me_

_And how the sky gets heavy_

_When you are underneath it_

_Oh, I want to sail away from here..._

-Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, "Otherside"

* * *

She continued to wake up, tie her tie, put on her shoes, take the T to Copley, and work as if nothing was wrong.

Chell felt Wheatley's absence at the front desk. Aperture put a new person in the lobby, a quiet girl who wore all black and a purple scarf, who worked tight-lipped and quiet. Chell didn't know her name. The girl never looked at her. When the phone rang, she cupped her hand around the receiver and turned her head towards the wall so no one would hear her.

Gladys tried (and failed) to bully the girl. When the receptionist didn't respond to her boss' ribbing, the woman's red lips twisted into a scowl, and she sauntered back to her office with a tightness in her shoulders.

"At least the tumor is gone," she whispered to Chell a week later.

Then another week passed, and Gladys came by Chell's cubicle again and whispered:

"Mr. Johnson gave me a raise. He'll give you a raise, too, for your good sleuthing. How exciting."

Chell's hands formed fists. "I don't want it," she muttered.

"Suit yourself, Chell. He's never coming back. And you and I both know that." Gladys leaned back and turned away. "It's too bad," she cooed.

* * *

Wheatley didn't answer his phone.

A week went by.

Another week.

A month.

Two months.

It became hot outside.

No calls, no visits, nothing.

For once in his life, the man was completely silent.

Chell set her phone down at her bedside table and sighed. What kind of woman was she, that she was checking her cell every hour like a teenager? She wasn't dependent on a man. She didn't need to know if Wheatley forgave her or not. It was his fault for coming to work high.

For letting Gladys fuck him.

Chell sat heavily on her bed and looked out the window.

Or did he make Gladys fuck him?

Whose idea was it?

Did it even matter?

She put her head in her hands. It was none of her business who he had slept with before her, but something wasn't ringing true. Gladys had seemed hurt while telling the story, but Chell couldn't tell if that was just the woman's wounded pride. Wheatley had screamed at her to stop talking, but he could have just been tweaking something awful.

Everything was a mess.

_A whole load of amphigory_, she thought to herself, and smiled bitterly.

She picked up her phone and checked it.

Her stomach dropped. There was one message waiting for her.

She unlocked her phone.

From Wheatley: _i hate you, lady._

She pursed her lips. It wasn't the first time someone said they hated her, but she felt empty. God, it even had proper grammar. He was furious with her, and she had done nothing wrong, except for stand by and let him get fired for something that was all his fault, because she was bitter at him for his drug use and for screwing her boss for power and satisfaction once upon a time, before she joined the company, before this relationship had fallen into such total, total _amphigory_.

Chell stood up and walked over to her shoes.

She was going to see him and make this right.

He wasn't justified in hating her. For once in her lonely life, she was upset that someone didn't love her.

* * *

"Oh, he's here, lady," Apollo told her at the door, a wide smile on his face. Despite his small frame, he managed to drape himself across the entire entryway, his lanky arms stretched out like wings. "He's in his room."

Chell's eyes darted to his hands.

They were shaking violently.

Her eyes darted back to him.

"Great," she said, "Can I see him?"

"No," Apollo replied, his brows furrowing. "No, no, no. You see, lady, he's gone to space. Gone, gone, gone. Zoom, away."

Chell's eyes widened, but she kept her voice low and even. "Is he okay?" she hissed.

Apollo's eyes closed for a minute. Just when she was sure he had fallen asleep in the doorway, he opened them again and smiled even wider. "Everybody's okay in space, lady."

He reached into his pocket, pulled out the same Altoids tin he had brought out on that wintery morning so long ago. "Wanna go to space, lady? Come to space with us. It'll be fun. You'll _fly_."

Chell stared at the Altoids tin, her teeth gritted.

She turned on her heel and walked as fast as she could out of the apartment building. When she got out on the street, she sprinted towards the T, her blood pounding in her ears.

* * *

She lay in bed that night, eyes wide open, hands neatly folded above her stomach. The clock beside her read 11:05 pm; she had gone to bed at 9 pm and hadn't slept a wink. Chell had instead stayed awake turning over thoughts in her head about how Wheatley was doing.

So he had spent the last two months completely high, according to Apollo. The days were getting longer, and he was sinking deeper.

Out of morbid curiosity, she had searched the side effects of codeine while riding home on the T. _Euphoria. Scratching. Severe addiction. Drowsiness. Dizziness. Mood swings._ On and on, site after site recommending how best to take codeine: with weed, with mushrooms, with beer, with LSD.

Death was a possibility.

She turned over in bed and closed her eyes. She rubbed at her temple with one hand. Tomorrow morning, she had to go into his apartment and get him to stop. She _had_ to. The relationship might have gone to shit, but he wasn't going to kill himself on her watch.

_Bang, bang, bang._

She sat upright in bed, eyes wide.

_Bang, bang, bang._

Unintelligible muttering came from the other side of her front door.

She slowly got out of bed and crept out of her bedroom. You had to be careful in Brookline; it wasn't as terrible as, say, Cambridge, but Chell was always on her guard anyway.

She looked through the peephole and inhaled sharply.

Chell opened the door.

Wheatley shoved past her into the apartment. He was stumbling; his clothes were dirty and disheveled, and his hair stuck up in all different directions. He was incredibly short of breath, as if he had been running from the T stop to her apartment.

Chell slowly closed the door. "Wheatley?"

He stiffened, looked around, seemed to suddenly realize where he was. The lanky man turned on his heel and looked straight through her. His blue eyes were wide and bloodshot, framed by enormous dark circles. He was trembling. His bare arms were caked with scratch marks and dried blood.

"Wheatley," she said calmly. She took slow, careful steps towards him, her stomach twisting into knots when he took several steps back. "You need to get help."

He finally focused on her.

His features twisted with rage.

"_You_."

"Wheatley, you need to get help. Listen to me."

He lunged at her. Chell stumbled backwards.

"You _monster_," he hissed. His words were slurred, as if he had had too much to drink. "_You _did this."

He laughed and spread his arms as he advanced slowly towards her. Chell took another step backwards and ended up flush against her door.

"You...you and her...y-you were in this together, weren't you? This was all a part of your plan, wasn't it?"

"Wheatley," she said, trying to keep her voice level and even, "go to the hospital, now."

"I'm not sick!" he screamed, lunging at her again. She sidestepped, and he ended up barreling straight into her front door with a loud _thud_. "_I'm_ not sick, lady. _You're _sick, you know that?"

Wheatley slumped against the wood, completely focused on her. His hands formed claws. "_You_," he growled, "_You_ took away my job. I have no money. I'm a mess, now," he added, suddenly giggling, pressing his thumbs to his chest. "But _I'm_ in control, now. I can get you fired. I'll tell Gladys you were in on it, the dope, the lean."

His voice rose to a scream. "You're bloody finished, you terrible, awful woman!"

Chell moved backwards, reaching behind her for one of her coffee table books. "You need help."

"I don't need anything," he said, panting as he stumbled towards her, eyes wide. "Fuck you, lady. I don't need you. I'll be fine on my own." He grinned, wide and terrible. "I could kill you, you know. You're in my way. _You're_ trying to kill me. Just self-defense, isn't it?"

Her fingers closed around the book's spine, twisting her wrist behind her back so she could lift it up. "No one's trying to kill you," she said slowly. She held a hand in front of her. "This is the codeine, Wheatley."

"It was the only thing that made me feel good. It scratched an Itch I had, lady, one you could never, ever get rid of. It was my friend."

"What are you on?" Her voice was starting to shake. Her heart was thumping in her chest.

But she kept her eye on him.  
His wrists closed around hers, and he leaned in close. "Amazing things," he whispered, the same smile on his face. "Things you can't give to me. Things you're trying to take away. But you can't. But I can take something away from you, lady."

He let out a growl and thrust his hand towards her throat. Chell, acting quickly, hefted the book up at the same time.

But, before she could bring it down on his head, he was on the floor, curled up and screaming. His shaking became more intense.

"No, please," he cried. Tears started to stream down his face. "No, no, no! You're trying to kill me. It's going to hurt, isn't it? You're trying to send me to the _moon_. Please, Chell, please!"

Chell blinked and slowly lowered the book.

He heaved, and she stepped back on instinct. "They're trying to kill me," he whispered. His eyes swiveled around her apartment, and he covered his mouth. "I'm not a moron," he said. "I'm not. I'm not stupid. I know. I know...things. I know they're trying to kill me. Aperture is. She is. You are, too. We have to get out. We have to escape, lady. You can't kill me. They can't kill me."

He tried to lift himself, but collapsed to the floor again with a cry. She dropped the book; the loud slap of it hitting the floor made him shriek and curl even tighter into himself.

"They're going to kill you too," he whimpered. He began to sob, and covered his face with shaking hands.

She slowly stepped towards him. "Wheatley," she sighed. She crouched, reached out a hand, and brushed his shoulder.

"Get away from me!" he screamed. He was up like a shot, and he ran towards her bathroom. Within a minute, she could hear him vomiting.

Chell sat back on the floor, eyes glued to the doorway. Whimpering and crying came from the bathroom between bouts of him being sick.

After a couple of minutes, the apartment fell silent.

She got up and slowly tiptoed to the bathroom. Her heart was in her throat.

Was he dead?

She pushed open the door. Wheatley was lying on the floor, eyes scrunched closed, fast asleep. His breathing was heavy, and he was twitching.

Chell sighed and slid her hands under him. With a grunt, she lifted him. His unconscious body was heavy, but she forced herself to bring him to the couch.

She laid him down on the cushions on his side and ran to her bedroom. She placed a trash can on the floor near his head, and slipped mittens onto his hands; they were too small to hold his long fingers, but they would have to do.

He mumbled in his sleep and cried out quietly. She petted his hair gently.

"Shhhh," she whispered.

"Okay," he whispered back. After a pause, he sighed deeply: "I love you, Chell."

She smiled, a few tears running down her face, and said nothing.

* * *

In the morning, she called the office, and, for the first time in years, took the rest of the week off.


	12. Chapter 12

**Song lyrics are from "Iron" by Woodkid.**

* * *

Wheatley slept for most of Thursday; Chell wasn't surprised, considering he vomited and fell asleep at one in the morning. Chasing her around Boston after she visited his apartment must have taken the life out of him.

She leaned against the wall near the entrance to the sitting room, cup of coffee in one hand. Soft morning sunlight fell on his crumpled shirt; in the blue dawn, he snored softly.

He started moaning in the afternoon.

Chell ran from the kitchen to the living room and saw him, half-conscious, tossing and turning on the couch. He desperately pawed at his arms and whined.

She leaned against the wall and smiled gently. "You could just take the mittens off."

"Fuck you," he cried, then turned over and puked into the trash can. Then he turned over and fell back asleep.

* * *

Chell wiped the sweat off of his face that night. Getting Wheatley to eat was a struggle; he couldn't keep much down besides water, but she figured out quickly that smoothies were okay for his agitated stomach. He drank slowly, hands trembling.

When she pulled away, his eyes slid up to hers, and he glared as best he could. The whites were completely bloodshot. The trembling in his hand increased. He took one final gulp and set the glass on the table before weakly falling back on the couch.

"You're bloody terrible," he spat.

"I know."

He grunted and fell asleep again.

* * *

All through Friday, he hurled abuse at her: she was fat, she was a monster, she was shit in bed anyway, he didn't know why he bothered with rubbish like her.

She kept silently wiping the sweat off of his face, giving him water and smoothies, and cleaning off scratch marks as they appeared.

All through Friday night, he cried and cried, and she lay awake and listened to him mumble her name, over and over.

At one point, he screamed so loudly that Chell stumbled out of bed, eyes still shut tight, and sat next to him until he calmed down.

* * *

Saturday afternoon, he woke up.

"Love?" he asked, his voice meek. "Can I have a smoothie?"

When she brought it to him, he lifted himself up on his own and took it.

When he had finished drinking, Wheatley sat back and said, "I'm sorry."

She took the glass and went back to the kitchen.

"I'm sorry," he called after her. She didn't respond.

* * *

In the middle of the night Saturday, she woke up to rustling in the bathroom. She flew out of bed.

She opened the door to find Wheatley, hunched over the sink, desperately rummaging through her medicine drawer. When he looked up, he stumbled backwards and fell on the floor, wide-eyed. A bottle of cold medicine was clutched in his sweating hand. A few tears rolled down his cheeks.

"Please, just something to hold me over," he said, but she simply pulled him off the floor, dragged him kicking and screaming back to the living room couch.

Then she sat next to him while he curled up in a ball and whimpered.

* * *

Sunday morning, she woke up to him shaking her shoulder while she still laid in bed. She opened one eye and peered up at him.

"Can I shower?" he whispered.

"That's the first time you've asked," she said, "Wait here." She turned over and rolled out of bed.

Chell took all of the medication out of the bathroom, hid it in the kitchen, then called out, voice rough with exhaustion, "Go."

In the middle of his shower, Chell heard him singing quietly to himself. He was dreadfully off-key, his throat rough from vomiting and crying for days.

She half-smiled at him when he came back in, dripping wet, wearing some old clothes he had forgotten to take home months ago. He had cleaned up the scars on his arms.

"Can I have something else?" he asked her when she put the smoothie in front of him, so she made him eggs and watched him eat, the fork shaking gently in his hand.

* * *

He grabbed her hand when she went to go to bed that night.

"Wait, love," he said, his voice thick, "I haven't done anything. I'm...I'm positively useless. Please, I..."

Chell turned slowly and watched as Wheatley started to cry again. He let go of her hand and wiped his nose on his sleeve. The trembling came back, and violently.

She knelt down and took his glasses off. "Shh," she whispered, and stroked his face.

He scrunched up his eyes and let out a howling sob. "W-why are you doing this?"

"Shh."

And she slowly leaned in and pressed her lips to his. He let out a small whimper and pulled her close. His long fingers entangled themselves in her hair; he massaged the back of her head.

She pulled away and lifted up the corner of his blanket. He scrambled to the side to make room for her, and they curled up together.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to her, his blue eyes full of tears. She put her finger to his lips to silence him, then leaned in and kissed him again.

* * *

He stood in the doorway and watched her get dressed for work. His sickness had mostly subsided; all he had now was a lack of energy.

"Stay here," Chell said to him as she tugged her tie into place. "Don't leave. Don't see anyone. Don't call anyone unless it's me. Don't buy anything." She turned to look at him, and he straightened up. "Will you be okay?" she asked gently.

"I'll be fine, love."

He started to laugh. "I'm always fine. Especially since..." He shifted from foot to foot and scratched the blond stubble on his cheek. "Especially since I have you."

She strode over and pressed her palm gently to his chest, and smiled up at him. "I'll be back at five, then."

* * *

"You've been busy," Gladys said. She leant across her desk and steepled her fingers. "I can tell by the bags under your eyes. They aren't normally there, so you must have been...up to something."

Chell spread her hands and continued to stare at her boss.

Gladys' rouged lips curled into a smile, and she rested her chin on her hand in a poor imitation of someone Chell could trust. "Aren't men just a scream?" she drawled.

* * *

"I'm riding out the heights of shame," Wheatley sang from her shower, his voice squeaking. "I'm waiting for the call, the end of the chase...I'm ready for the fight...and fate."


	13. Chapter 13

Gladys leaned back in her chair. "Anyway, what I wanted to tell you is this. You have two options: either you could get a promotion to assistant manager, or you could leave."

Chell raised an eyebrow. There was a long pause.

"Oh, come on," Gladys said finally, "We both know you hate being here. But you're so..._talented _at what you do. Even when you manage to make a mess of things, which is often-"

"Where would I go?"

"-it always manages to be a mess only you can clean up," her boss continued, talking over her. Chell cleared her throat. Gladys swiveled in her desk chair and looked down at Copley Square below. "Of course, I can't stand you being here. No one can. No one, that is, but Mr. Johnson."

"I don't believe you."

Gladys' voice grew louder. Under the glass table, Chell watched the woman's pale hands crumple into fists. "After the..._incident_ involving that idiot, he decided to keep an eye on you. He ordered me to be his eyes and ears. And," she added with a dramatic sigh, "no matter how honest I was, he seemed to like what he heard and what he saw you do with the company. And he ordered me to give you a promotion, despite _my_ plans for Aperture...and _your_ best interests."

Chell looked down at her shoes. Wheatley had attempted to polish them for her that morning, but he had failed; they ended up more scuffed than before. Gladys had glanced down at them earlier and snorted, but hadn't said anything.

Whether or not Gladys knew that Chell was living with Wheatley was anyone's guess; Chell knew, however, that Gladys knew they were still involved. There was no other way to explain the sudden days off, the unexplained tardiness that was so unlike Chell. Her boss was not a stupid woman, or unobservant. Chell had very few acquaintances, and hardly ever drank; she was always on time. There was only one person who could ruin her otherwise perfect schedule, and that person was currently asleep on her couch back in Brookline, mumbling to himself in his slumber.

"It's your decision, Chell. But I highly suggest you leave. You know you want to."

* * *

"You _what_?"

Chell pushed past a gawking Wheatley and strode into her kitchen. "I took it."

"You're staying there? With...with _her_?"

She realized as she turned on her oven that Wheatley could have taken her acceptance of the promotion as a betrayal. After all, Chell was now working alongside the woman Wheatley had hated most.

In the dark window, she could see Wheatley run a hand through his tousled blond hair. "B-but you _hate _her! You absolutely loathe her! You want to see her hit by the train!"

"True," Chell said with a shrug of her shoulders. She opened her refrigerator and peered inside.

Wheatley paced back and forth on the linoleum floor, wringing his hands. "And...and now you're doing all of this managing for her! Ohh ho ho, I can just see it now. You fetching her coffee, shining her shoes, doing her hair, driving her car..."

Chell grinned as she examined a package. "I don't think so."

"But if you don't, she'll _fire _you. Or kill you. Or eat you, I'm sure. Like the giant praying mantis woman she is. Or an overgrown cat." Wheatley stopped in the middle of the kitchen and threw his hands into the air. "Man alive, love! Why?"

Chell hesitated. She glanced over at Wheatley; he was still standing there, his hands spread, eyebrows so high up his face they nearly disappeared into his hair. She walked over to him.

"Why'd _you_ screw her?" she asked quietly.

Wheatley went absolutely pale and began stuttering. "Because, I...uh."

She put her hands on her hips. "Yeah?"

"Um. Yeah, I..." He seemed to curl in on himself, long fingers tangling together. His glasses slid down his nose.

Chell relaxed, ruffled his hair, and snorted. "Because you wanted to protect yourself."

"It was stupid," he said quickly. "Absolutely mental. All that for a bottle of shit."

"I know." She walked to the counter. A long silence descended on the kitchen as she prepared their meal.

"Just bloody over the moon, and it was stupid, and oh God. I'm sorry."

Chell paused halfway through sliding a tray into the oven. "Sorry?"

Wheatley continued; his voice was muffled from his face in his hands. "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I shagged her, I'm sorry I was stupid, I'm sorry for the dope, I'm sorry for making you smoke, I'm sorry for even trying drugs in the first place, I was a...a moron, it was college, I was a young thing and my friend said it would make me feel better, then I moved in with Apollo who's not even my friend, I'm not sure where he came from or even if he's still alive since I left the apartment, I'm the only one who even buys food anymore because he's even more hooked than I am, if I'm any indication he's probably a pile of mold on the floor by now, oh God, I'm sorry."

Chell closed the oven and turned around. Wheatley sunk to his knees on the floor and curled up.

"Oh God, I was so stupid," he continued, and let out a ragged sob. "I'm sorry I picked up your coat, I'm sorry I bothered you, I'm sorry I brought you to that shit bar in the first place and made you choose the restaurant, I'm sorry that I come really fast, I don't mean to but I know it makes you upset, I'm sorry that I'm shit in bed, I'm sorry I bit you that one time, I'm sorry I brought you roses, I'm sorry that I put your Christmas sweater in the dryer and it shrunk and I told you that I threw it out the window and a raccoon unraveled it and that's why you could never wear it anymore, I was high and wasn't thinking a-and I forgot when you told me to hang it on a wire instead, I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry."

"Wheatley..." She knelt next to him and brushed the side of his face. He curled up tighter, his voice now a whisper.

"And I'm sorry I said all those things to you when I was on that mental crap, Apollo said it would make me go places but I don't think it was pure, you know, probably bloody muddled, and I ate it with the dope and got on the train and I'm not sure why I did that, I'm sorry I'm using up all of the hot water in the flat and eating all of the food and-"

"Wheatley."

He let out a small whimper.

Chell's voice softened as she put her arm around him. "Wheatley..."

"I'm sorry," he murmured, so quietly she wouldn't have heard it if she didn't press her lips to his temple and pull him close.

That night, she let him sleep in her bed, curled against her, lips pressing to her exposed throat from time to time as he whispered, over and over until he fell asleep: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please don't go back to her, I'll make it up to you."

* * *

At four in the morning, they woke at the same time, and lied there in a drowsy tangle of limbs, listening to the birds chirping outside.

"Let's make a deal," Chell whispered.

"Okay," Wheatley whispered back.

"Go back to your apartment," she said. Her fingers rubbed gentle circles into his scalp. He let out a small cooing noise and nestled closer. "Don't come back until you have your life together."

Wheatley pressed his face to her chest. "I'm gonna miss you, love." Chell smiled, looking up at her ceiling. The morning light tinted the white paint a faint blue. "You'll be back."

And at the same time, they began to cry.


	14. Chapter 14

******THIS PART IS NSFW.**

**Thank you so so much to everyone who read and supported this story! I know it took a while and it wasn't the longest thing in the world, but it was really a joy to work on and completely different from what I normally write. This story forced me to stretch my imagination and connect things back and write highly complex, adult relationships, and hearing the encouragement from all the readers just drove me to improve more and more. I will probably end up writing more in this ficverse because I enjoyed making it so much. I hope you enjoy this last part!**

* * *

**FIVE YEARS LATER**

There was a knock at her door.

Chell stretched her limbs and dog-eared the page of her book. It was late afternoon on a Saturday, in the middle of spring. Insects buzzed under the low hum of Brookline.

The visitor knocked again, this time more insistently.

Chell stood and padded over to the front door of her apartment.

An enormous bouquet of roses greeted her when she opened the door. She blinked, and something long-dormant stirred in her. She hadn't had any men over in the past five years; that meant...

"Love?"

Her heart skipped a beat. "Wheatley?" she said softly. She took a tentative step forward and reached out towards the roses. After a pause, she lifted them from the pale, trembling hands clutching them.

The blue eyes behind the ugly orange-rimmed glasses were too familiar. She remembered that blond coiffed hair, that powder-blue blazer that, after all these years, now looked as if it'd seen better days. His face, thin and sickly when she had last seen it, was fuller, healthier; his cheeks were now dusted with blond stubble. A half-smile spread across her face, and she leaned back to take him in.

"It's really you," she said over the roses.

"I missed you, lady," Wheatley stammered, wringing his hands together. Despite the wide grin, he looked five seconds from pissing himself. "I-I got better."

Chell bit her lip. "I see."

There was a small pause.

"Can I come in?" he asked.

She nodded and gestured for him to follow her.

While she stood in her bare feet in the middle of her apartment, feeling the soft petals of a rose between two fingers, Wheatley closed the door and shrugged off his jacket.

"I wanted to bring back something nice," he said quietly as he kicked off his shoes. "I, um...roses aren't your favorite, are they?" She heard him creeping towards her. "The last time I, uh, got them for you...let's say that wasn't very successful. Not the brightest idea. But it was the only thing I can think of. You know when...it's like, when your fridge is empty, right?" More shuffling footsteps. She sniffled. f"And you think to yourself, God, I forgot! How could I forget to eat?" His fingers brushed against her shoulder. "So you just...you take whatever's in there, and you...are you alright there? Because I could, um..."

She turned around and kissed him full on the mouth. The roses fell forgotten to the floor.

He made a soft noise and, after some hesitation, pulled her to him. She felt his fingers brush her cheek tenderly as if she was something delicate, something he wasn't supposed to have, and that made her press against him harder, fingers tangling in his thick hair. He pressed back against her with surprising strength, fingers grasping at the shirt on her lower back.

When she pulled away, he sighed and brushed his nose against hers.

"Oh, yes," he murmured, "I really missed you."

She grinned and kissed him again. The dormant thing unspooled in her, the tension of years disappearing for a few seconds, and she heard herself sighing deeply with the release.

This man had done something to her.

Wheatley groaned and moved his focus to her neck, scattering sloppy kisses across her flushed skin. Chell pushed his head away.

"Come on." She grabbed his hand and strode to her bedroom. He stumbled behind her, giggling.

She threw him in after her. Before he could turn to meet her, she gave him a shove; he landed stomach-down on the bed. She straddled him and began gently kissing the back of his neck. Wheatley dug his fingers into the mattress.

"Mmm." He stretched, his eyes closed and glasses askew as he rested his cheek against the sheets. You're a minx."

"I know," she whispered, her smile wide.

She lifted off of him and stepped back onto the wooden floor. He wriggled around and flipped onto his back; he grabbed her arms and pulled her down again. She threaded her fingers into his hair and kissed his nose.

"It was the craziest thing," he said, "I couldn't stop thinking about you. No matter how hard I tried, it was sort of, oh, there she is again. Really! You're bloody magic. Just something else, I'm telling you."

"Magic?" Chell pushed off of him and went to lean against the pillows. She folded her hands neatly in her lap and raised an eyebrow. "Are you making fun of me?"

He crawled above her, his smile wide. "I swear to God, Chell."

"So you didn't see anyone..."

His face fell. "No."

She sighed. "Neither did I."

He leaned in and kissed her cheek. His fingers made their way under her shirt; she reached down and yanked it off in one swift motion.

Their lips came together again.

His hands fumbled against her skin, his shaking fingers cupping her breasts as he sucked against the skin of her collarbone. Her hand closed around his length in his pants, and he squirmed.

"Please," he breathed, hands shaking as he pulled her closer, "please, please..."

She threaded her fingers into his hair and tightened her grip on him. "What's that?" she panted.

"P-please, can I...please, oh God, Chell, l-like old times?"

She smiled and nuzzled his forehead. He bucked into her hand and whimpered. He turned his head; his lips were upturned into a breathless grin as he looked up at her.

She smiled back.

"Yeah," was all she said, and in a silent blur they came together again in that apartment, on that bed, and started over.

**END**


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